“You are supposed to augment interconnect when the current capacity utilisation reaches 70 per cent . You cannot use excuses that someone is doing promotions, capacity requirement has gone up, etc. Those are not acceptable,” Ambani said.

On September 1, six years after reentering the sector, Ambani commercially launched the group’s telecom venture — Jio — revolutionising the industry’s financial paradigm by offering voice free of cost for life, even while on roaming, besides offering data at around a fifth of industry rates. Till year-end, however, even data will be free of cost for all subscribers, resulting in a rush for SIM cards and leaving Ambani enthused by the response.

However, on launch day, RIL stock fell 2.7 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Ambani said Jio is aiming for a single-digit share (or 100 million) of India’s connected population to start with, adding that the market of 1.2 billion people is big enough for four to five operators. “So we are still babies in this business.” RIL returned to the telecom sector in 2010 by acquiring a company that had won 4G airwaves in auctions that year.

Investing in IndiaAmbani said back in 2010-11, the diversified group — with interests in oil & gas, petrochemicals, textiles and retail, and huge cash reserves — faced a choice of either buying an overseas company or investing in India and building something new.

The company was widely expected to choose the first option and grow its energy business further, but it picked the second and more difficult choice. “It was my conviction that if at all I am going to risk a few billion dollars, it’s better I risk it in our own country, for our own people, solving some of their most difficult problems. So, that’s a conscious choice that we made,” he said.

If he had bet on making its energy business larger, then “these businesses would have become bigger and the numbers would have been bigger. But the outcome for India would not have been there. And the business risk for Reliance would still have been the same”. So he stuck to his conviction — that RIL is an Indian company and must be for India and Indians — and took the Jio plunge.

“When we started the capital cycle in 2010-11, contrary to most other Indian business houses, we put 100 per cent of our money in India. And we think that this will yield us attractive returns,” he said.

Cordial tiesAhead of his re-entry into telecom, there was a much-publicised patch-up with his younger brother that allowed both to enter into businesses where the other was present.

“I’m happy we’ve overcome all our past issues at family level. In this respect, we’re in a very cordial place,” Ambani said. “In terms of business, we’re separate.”

When asked if the two brothers — who already have telecom infrastructure and resource-sharing agreements with each other — would look to deepen their business ties, he said Jio would treat RCom as it did all other industry players.

“Fundamentally, we remain open to working with all players in the industry. We are working with RCom in a number of mutually beneficial areas, as we are with Bharti, Vodafone and Idea,” he said.

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Here's what Mukesh Ambani said on Reliance Jio, Indian broadband landscape

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